


If You Don't Trust Me

by helens78



Category: Firefly
Genre: Angst, Episode Related, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-11-11
Updated: 2005-11-11
Packaged: 2017-10-05 20:03:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helens78/pseuds/helens78
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wash has always been jealous of Mal, and Zoe has always wondered why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You Don't Trust Me

**Author's Note:**

> This happens right smack in the middle of _War Stories_. No spoilers.

_Idiot. I married an idiot._

Zoe banged the door to their quarters open and climbed down, pacing the few steps it took to cross the room. It was enough to make a woman think about ripping her hair out by the roots. God help her, it really was.

_...what this marriage needs is one less husband..._

Zoe groaned and sat down on their bunk, head dropping into her hands. She wasn't going to start tearing her hair out yet, but it was tempting. _Damn it, Wash. You asked. You _asked_ if there was anything between us, and I told you, and what did you think? That I lied to you?_

He'd waited a while before asking. That much was true. They'd been sharing a bed for going on six weeks before he'd asked her straight out if there was anything between her and Mal, and when he'd asked in the first place he'd done it in such a way that, all right, her answer was a little dubious. But when she'd puzzled out what he was really after, she'd given him that look, the one that questioned his sanity without saying a word, and she'd told him the truth.

"You don't think the captain's going to kill me because of this, do you?"

"Huh?"

"This, you know. Us. Me. You. Sleeping together. Having a mad, passionate affair all over his ship."

"It's not _all over his ship_."

"That's true, I don't think we've managed to have sex in the galley yet." Wash's eyebrows went up. "But we could. Although you can't really lick whipped proteins off someone like you can with whipped cream..."

Zoe's face screwed up, half-disgust and half-laughter, and she punched him lightly on the arm. "That's _awful_."

"I know it's awful! That's why I'm saying we're not gonna _do_ it." Wash paused. "Not until we land planetside somewhere and I can buy some whipped cream. Surely at some point we'll be near a ranch or something. Someplace where there's milk and cream by the gallon... oh, God, that sounds good..."

"Why do you think the captain would kill you?"

Wash looked up at her. He mirrored the mild frown on her face with one of his own. "Oh, you actually want to answer that?"

"Hey." She poked him in the arm. "You asked. I'm just trying to figure out where that question's coming from."

"I'm not stepping on his toes or something?"

Zoe stared at him for a few heavy seconds, and then started to laugh. Wash looked hurt, then tried to laugh, too, like he was in on the joke, but it fell a little flat.

"Oh, baby, no. No. There ain't nothing between me and Mal, never has been."

"Never...?"

"He was my commanding officer. You don't fuck around with your sergeant in the middle of a war. It can be distracting, and we were distracted enough by trying to stay alive."

"So you would have? If there'd been the opportunity."

"We had _plenty_ of opportunity. Hell, it's not like we didn't have time on this boat before you got here."

"I don't think I like the sound of that."

"Baby." She rolled over on top of him and kissed him, soft, the way he always seemed so caught off-guard by, the way that made him melt into a puddle of goo every time. "Mal might be worried about shipboard romances on his boat. We break up, you and I could make life pretty uncomfortable for each other. For the rest of the crew, too. _But..._"

She was waiting for him to take the bait -- _come on, baby, you know we're not gonna break up_ \-- but it wasn't happening, so she went on herself. "But that's not happening, I'm not going anywhere, and if I wanted to park my boots under his bunk, believe me, I'd have done it by now."

"I don't know if that's reassuring or not," Wash said, but his voice was weak and his body was, if not feeling reassured, at least starting to feel a bit of interest in the woman lying on top of him. She could feel that much pressing against her thigh.

"I want _you_," Zoe murmured, and that was the end of the talking for a while.

_And you said you believed me._ That was what hurt the most about all this. He was supposed to believe her.

She sighed and kicked her boots off, stretching out on the bunk. When Wash got back, she'd pin him down and either yell at him or fuck him senseless, and either way _she'd_ feel better, and if it didn't soothe his worries, well, might be there wouldn't be much she could do for that. But Gods above, she wasn't going to stand for this kind of rampant male insecurity for much longer. One way or the other, she'd work it out of his system.

_Okay, baby. Just fly on home and we'll sort it all out. Fly on home._

_-end-_


End file.
